Three of us drove up to the Portal yesterday to climb Thor Peak. Thor is the peak you see between you and Whitney as you're driving into the Portal. Thor has that large platau that slopes up to the peak. You could drive all the way to the portal w/ 4WD and good tires, with blacktop up to the Meysan Lake Trailhead. We took the old trail up from the Portal to the junction of he main trail (MT). From there, up to Lone Pine Lake the taril is well defined, with consolidated snow which is frozen and slippery. We left the MT just prior to LP Lake and headed north/west - up the south/east coulour that leads to the Thor Platau. We encountered everything from knee deep snow and hard frozen surfaces, to steep snow/ice/rock mix. Our turn-around time was 2PM, at which point we were just 500 vert ft short of the summit. With conditions as they were, we estimated that last 500' would take an additional hour, so turned around and headed down the north side of Thor, down what's called the Secret Route to Lower BS Lake. There was very faint sign of traffic in the snow along the North Fork Trail, but the trail could be made out. We continued down and gave the Ledges a go. Although the Ledges had a lot of snow on them, they were passable with care, right up to near the bottom. When descending the Ledges, just before reaching the tree, the rock has a good slope which is covered with glazed ice with a coule inches of snow. I highly recommend a BELAY for this short section, because a slip there would be fatal. We reached the MT junction just after dark, and back at the truck by 6PM. With the current weather report, I would say this report will be OBE by tomorrow night.
